Moon Living Abroad in France by Aurelia d'Andrea

Author:Aurelia d'Andrea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avalon Travel
Published: 2012-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

See CHECKS AND BALANCES

Be warned that banks also like to charge you for things you wouldn’t necessarily consider charge-worthy, such as phone calls, paper bank statements, additional cards, and, of course, checkbooks. Ask your banker to fill you in on all those little things, because they do add up.

When you open your bank account, it will be assigned an RIB (Relevé d’Identité Bancaire) number, which you’ll need to memorize or have on hand when you want to transfer funds from your American or Canadian account to your French one, and to set up the prélèvement for automatic debits. RIBs also come in handy on the first of the month, when rent is due. Proprietaires and locataires alike appreciate the easy rent-paying inherent in direct deposit.

Depositing checks here isn’t as straightforward as it is in American and Canadian banks. In France, you can deposit cash into guichets automatiques (ATMs), but you’ll have to deposit checks by visiting the bank, filling out a form, handing it to the person behind the counter, and taking a receipt.

Fiscal responsibility and integrity are taken very seriously here. If you bounce a check, the consequences include a check-writing ban for as long as five years—I’m not kidding. If you lose your card (or have it stolen), you are responsible for the charges unless you report the loss or theft immediately and better still, file a police report.

Banks won’t charge you for using another bank’s guichet automatique or distributeur for the first few withdrawals per month, but after the fourth, fifth, or sometimes sixth withdrawal, depending on the bank, they can—and often do—tack on a fee in the €1 range. If you’re traveling outside the euro zone with your carte bleue, check with your bank beforehand to see which foreign banks it’s partnered with. BNP Paribas, for instance, is partnered with Bank of America in the U.S. and Westpac in Australia, and therefore doesn’t charge a withdrawal fee if you use guichets automatiques at those banks (but will charge you €3 per transaction, plus a percentage of the amount withdrawn, at other banks).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.